


Donna AU

by The_Raconteur_24601



Series: Prompts and Shorts [4]
Category: Doctor Who, The Borrowers - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Doctor Who Crossover, Drugs, Experimentation, G/T, GT, TINY - Freeform, Trauma, giant, giant tiny - Freeform, the borrowers crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 06:25:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 9,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16848814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Raconteur_24601/pseuds/The_Raconteur_24601
Summary: An alternate version of BTaS in which Zepheera met the Doctor under vastly different circumstances.Mostly prompts and shorts and Zepheera-Visions*Any GIFs used are NOT MINE, I claim no ownership over them. They are used for illustrative purposes only, I do not claim to have made them*





	1. Hollow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on [ this 100 word prompt list.](https://borrowedtimeandspace.tumblr.com/post/146719798951/100-theme-challenge)
> 
> 32\. Hollow

_Earth, 2085 A.D._

No matter how adaptable borrowers could be to their environments, they couldn’t escape the rise of technology for long. They weren’t a worldwide phenomenon yet, but a few poor souls had fallen into the hands of human scientists. The lucky ones were studied humanely. Others were experimented on.

Zepheera supposed her luck would have had to run out eventually.

She didn’t regret it, not for a second. Her sacrifice distracted the searchers from a hidden colony she’d established long ago. Rather than lose all those lives and their hard work, Zepheera led the humans far away and allowed herself to be captured.

For the good of her people.

As a result, Zepheera ended up in the custody of scientists whose main role was to test new drugs. Until the recent discovery of borrowers, they’d had to resort to testing on rodents. In their minds, borrowers were close enough in physiology to humans that they made perfect test subjects. However, they’d only managed to scrounge up a handful of the tiny people along with Zepheera, so they kept the rodents around as a fallback.

This turned out to be a smart move as all of the other borrower test subjects died under the scientists'…care. Either they overdosed or starved themselves out or passed away from some other incidental circumstance. The humans did little to prevent their deaths, happy to perform autopsies and postmortems on the miniature cadavers.

Zepheera, on the other hand, they  _fought_  to keep her alive. She wasn’t like the others. They found out quickly that she could heal wounds momentarily; she’d been nicked by the pair of scissors they’d used to snip off the clothes she’d been wearing. They gave her a simple frock and decided she was their most valuable specimen, to be kept alive at any cost. They even force fed her when she participated in the hunger strike with the few friends she’d been able to make in that hell.

Now, she could barely remember any of their names, her brain was so addled with drugs.

They had her on a rotation. They’d give her one drug one day, give her two days to recover, and then start again with a different drug. She never learned the names of these drugs, but she recognized them from how they made her feel. One made her hyper and restless, another filled her with manic rage, and yet another made her unreasonably happy.

Today’s drug simply made her feel hollow.

* * *


	2. The Stranger

Zepheera leaned wearily against the clear acrylic that made up the opening of her kennel. She, the other borrowers, and the rats had all been kept in this large structure made up of dozens of small cubby-like containers, each about the size of a shoebox.

Though, Zepheera supposed now it was just her and the rats.

Each had a secure lock system, and the front hatches thankfully had a few air holes drilled into them. The rest of the walls were opaque, isolating each specimen thoroughly. She couldn’t see the rats she heard scratching futilely at their own walls. Even clean of drugs, Zepheera had given up on escape long ago.

The room was empty, so Zepheera had nothing to look at other than her own hand as it traced the tiny air hole nearby. It was too small for her to reach through, though she’d tried. She’d nearly broken her hand in the process, she recalled distantly. Even the memory of pain couldn’t evoke any emotion in her.

With a loud smash of the door, several human scientists burst into the room. Zepheera blinked slowly as she lifted her head to look at them. They were frantic, screaming and yelling things that couldn’t quite make it into her prison at such a distance.

They were followed by what Zepheera could only describe as metal men. Five entered, one for each scientist, stomping in time. Their soulless black eyes completely disregarded the unit that held Zepheera and the rats.

The metal men spoke in deep, cold voices, but she couldn’t process what they were saying. In short order, they cornered the scientists and touched them with outstretched silver hands.  The humans’ bodies succumbed to the electricity shooting through them, and they fell dead the instant they were let go.

Zepheera didn’t even have the capacity to react.

The silver intruders spoke among themselves, but Zepheera couldn’t hear what they were saying. She numbly crawled closer to the air holes, some deep part of her aware that it was important to know what exactly was going on.

“Oi, metalheads!” roared a new voice from the direction of the door. Zepheera calmly turned her head to look, finding a strange-looking man filling the doorway. He wore a brown pinstriped suit with red converse, a style of shoe Zepheera had thought to be long out of style. He was thin as a matchstick and had hair so unruly it could almost be dubbed rebellious. His eyes were wild with adrenaline, aimed solidly at the intruders. “Have you had your shots? Seems to me like you’re due for a  _booster!_ ”

He hurled a small cylindrical device at the metal men, and it stuck fast right dab in the middle of one’s chest. They all screamed as a massive field of energy surrounded them, and just like the humans before them, they collapsed one by one.

Without missing a beat, the man crossed the room quickly, examining the bodies of the scientists. He sighed when they all turned up dead. Then he stepped over to one of the metal creatures, prying his device off of its chest. He raised a small tool – a probe, it looked like – and activated the charge once again.

His eyes scanned the room as he pocketed the device, passing right over Zepheera before returning in a double take.

“What?” he frowned and walked carefully over.

The most Zepheera was able to react was a slight raise of her eyebrows. By all accounts, she should be scared out of her wits. She’d just watched this man presumably kill a bunch of silver nightmares who had murdered humans moments before. She couldn’t even begin to think what this man could have in store for someone like her, even if she were in a right state of mind.

To her nonexistent surprise, he simply leaned down and peered in at the borrower, concern etched in his features.

“Oh, you poor soul, what have they done to you?”

Zepheera blinked slowly at him.

He clenched his jaw in determination and attempted to open the hatch by hand. She knew he couldn’t do it that way, there were higher levels of security for the test subjects to eliminate chance of escape. Even so, his proximity to her awoke the instincts that had been drilled into her since childhood, and she backed away from him at a sluggish pace.

Abandoning that strategy, the stranger whipped out his probe, buzzing it at the lock. It released and the door swung open. She froze when he reached a hand in, laying it palm-up next to Zepheera.

“Come with me,” he urged, pleading with those big brown eyes.

She stared at his hand for a second, but made no move toward or away from it. The man blinked in confusion at her non-reaction and tried again. “Don’t be afraid, I’m not gonna hurt–”

Before he could finish, more ominous stomping could be heard in the hallway outside. The man glanced between the borrower and the door, conflicted for a moment. Finally, he turned an apologetic look to Zepheera.

“I’m so sorry, there’s no time.” That said, the hand shifted to scoop up the four and a half inch tall woman into its cupped palm.


	3. The Companion - ZV

Zepheera moaned softly as she sluggishly came to. The events of the last few hours replayed choppily in her mind. The man…he had picked her up and held her close to his chest as he fought his way through all of the metal men in his path. She remembered gripping the brown pinstriped fabric of his suit just to keep steady. He took her somewhere and tried to get her to talk, but her drug-addled mind refused to let her respond. Then he made her drink something, and everything after that was fuzzy.

The more conscious she became, the more she noticed about her surroundings. The surface on which she lay was strangely leathery and warm…and if she listened closely, she could hear a muted thrum coming from deep within, pressing up against her body in a one-two-three-four.

It was alive. It was a  _hand!_

She shot up with a startled exclamation, falling back on her hands and knees as the uneven ground twitched in surprise. As the hand flattened beneath her, she huddled into a frightened ball, awaiting the inevitable harm to befall her.

“It’s okay!” the man from before whispered, though it was still more than loud enough to make the borrower flinch. “You’re safe. I’m so sorry, I didn’t think you’d be awake for another few hours.”

Zepheera turned her head in the slightest to peek through the gap in the arm covering her head. He was so remarkably large, a small part of her wondered if he could even detect such a small movement.

“Look, er… I don’t mean to scare you. Would it help if I set you down?”

Zepheera frowned in confusion. She knew better than to trust this behemoth of a man after everything she’d been through. Still, he  _did_ rescue her from that lab, and he hadn’t made a move to hurt her yet. Hell, he’d had her in his hands while she was asleep! He could have easily done her in then. But he didn’t, and something about those enormous brown orbs insisted that he could be trustworthy.

Slowly lowering her arms from her head, she clutched them close to her chest as she mustered up all of her courage and nodded.

The man smiled, pleased by her response. “Alright. Here we go.”

His fingers curled back up, stretching over Zepheera’s head as he slowly leaned forward and reached out toward a flat but narrow silver surface. She practically scrambled out of his hand, grateful for the solid ground.

Without the giant man filling her vision, Zepheera took in the rest of her surroundings. He sat back in a faded yellow seat, full of holes and duct-tape patches. The room was enormous and dome-like, covered in dim, round lights. Nothing else made sense beyond that; whatever she was standing on hovered above an endless sea of strange-looking levers and dials and cranks.

“What’s your name?” The question made Zepheera’s attention snap up to the man. She pressed her back against the wall behind her and eyed him warily. He sighed, an action that ruffled Zepheera’s shoulder-length hair even at a distance. “I’m trying to help you. I need to know that you’re alright.”

She bit her lip, then swallowed thickly past the lump in her throat. It had been a while since she’d spoken to anyone.

“Zepheera,” she answered, her voice hoarse from disuse.

The man smiled again. “Beautiful name,” he remarked. “I’m the Doctor.” Her eyes flared up with terror again, and he quickly added, “No no no no, not that kind of doctor. Please listen, whatever they did to you, I’m not like them, I promise. Trust me, I only want to help.”

Unsure if she believed him or not, Zepheera forced herself to relax a little and nodded to show she understood.

“I’m going to ask you a few more questions, Zepheera,” the Doctor informed her. “Just to make sure you’re okay now that that nasty drug’s out of your system.”

Zepheera slid her back against the wall until she sat with her knees hugged to her chest. “Okay,” she murmured. She resigned herself to his care as long as he simply seemed concerned for her. That wasn’t a feeling she’d ever expected from someone his size.  
  


As her fear slowly dissipated, curiosity began to take its place. Zepheera began to ask the Doctor questions of her own, and before long they had a back and forth going. Zepheera told the Doctor how she ended up in that lab (leaving out the details about her hidden village) and what exactly they had done to her and the few others like her. She explained that she was the only one left in that place. In return, she learned where exactly she was: inside the Doctor’s TARDIS, which apparently could travel through time and space with ease.

It was the Doctor’s turn to ask a question. “How old are you?”

Zepheera frowned, realizing that she wasn’t sure. “What day is it?” She had been captured a couple months before her birthday, but she wasn’t entirely sure how much time she’d spent in that lab.

The Doctor leaned forward and pressed a button on the console, causing the wall behind Zepheera to light up. She jumped and whirl around to stare at the massive screen behind her as it displayed a series of concentric circles. “May seventh, year twenty eighty-five,” he recited.

_Six months_ , she thought despondently.

“I, erm. I guess that makes me a hundred and fifty-eight.”  _Happy birthday to me_.

The Doctor’s brow rose as he sat back. “Wow. Older than you look,” he mused. “Do you all age so slowly?”

A sad smile tugged at her lips. “Nah, it's…just me, I think.” She took a steadying breath before asking, “How old are  _you_?”

“Nine hundred and five,” he replied without hesitation.

Now it was Zepheera’s turn to be surprised. “So,  _way_  older than you look.”

The Doctor smirked, then adopted a more thoughtful expression. “Zepheera… Is there anything for you to go back to? A home, family, friends?”

Her heart stuttered at the question. As surprisingly pleasant as this man seemed, she was definitely not comfortable leading him to her people. She still had a duty to protect them until she had a full grasp of this new situation. “No,” she answered evenly. “Nothing.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” said the Doctor earnestly. He rubbed the back of his neck as he seemed to carefully consider his next words. “Well, if you’d like, you could – I mean, it would be entirely up to you, of course, but… I was wondering if you wanted to–”

“Doctor?”

Zepheera’s entire body tensed at this new voice.

* * *

“Doctor?”

Both the borrower and the Time Lord turned to look at the human standing in the entrance to the TARDIS console room. The red-haired woman was shrugging on a jacket as she stepped in. “Who are you talking to?”

“I’m in the middle of something, Donna,” said the Doctor pointedly

Donna rolled her eyes and approached with purpose in her steps. “No use keeping secrets from me, Spaceman, I live here too.”

Her gaze quickly fell on Zepheera, whose heartbeat quickened at the contact with a completely new human –  _Donna_ , the Doctor had called her.

“Blimey, get a load of that!” the human exclaimed. Zepheera flinched at the volume and backed up into the screen behind her, pulling her knees close again. She squeezed her eyes shut, overwhelmed by the sight of two giants looming over her.

The Doctor looked appalled by his companion’s behavior. “Donna, lower your voice,” he rebuked. “She’s been through a lot, no need to frighten her all over again by gawking!”

Without waiting for a response, he turned back to the four and a half inch tall woman huddled on the sill of his monitor. “Zepheera… C'mon, look at me,” he coaxed.

Considering she was outnumbered, Zepheera had no choice but to obey. She lifted her head to look up at the Doctor and Donna, who had come around to stand behind the Doctor’s right shoulder. The Doctor smiled encouragingly.

“That’s it. See? No harm done. This is just my friend, Donna. She travels with me.”

“She’s so  _teeny_ ,” Donna cooed, leaning over the Doctor to stretch a finger toward Zepheera, as if touching her would somehow prove her existence further. Zepheera backed away from the sudden approach before the Doctor stopped the human.

“No no, don’t do that,” he warned firmly. “Really. Don’t.”

Looking a bit sheepish, Donna withdrew her hand. “Was she always this small?”

Now it was the Doctor’s turn to roll his eyes. “Yes, now would you back off for a minute and let me get on with this?”

Much to Zepheera’s surprise, the human stepped away with a muttered apology. Once she was out of sight, the Doctor addressed Zepheera again. “Sorry about that. She’s harmless, I promise.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Anyway, what I meant to say was, I’d like you to stay. At least for a while, just so I can make sure all those drugs didn’t leave you with any permanent damage. If you could bear with me for a few days, I’ll take you wherever you want to go. Does that sound alright to you?”

Zepheera supposed that was fair. At least it didn’t sound like she’d be locked in a cage anymore. She nodded her approval.

The Doctor smiled. “Brilliant. Welcome aboard, then. Er, is there anything you want to do now?”

It took some digging, but Zepheera realized there was a lot she wanted to do. She wanted to sleep in a bed, she wanted to eat a meal that consisted of more than old cheese and bread, she wanted to drink an entire thimbleful of some kind of alcoholic drink. She looked down at herself; she wanted to wear clothes that made her feel like a person again. Then she touched a lock of her dark hair. It had already been getting long at the time of her capture, and it had grown past her shoulders over the months.

“I want to cut my hair,” she told him.  She was certain she wouldn’t feel anything like her old self until she did. And she had a feeling she could ask for the rest at any time.


	4. Please Come Out - ZV

Zepheera’s breathing shuddered involuntarily as the ground shook beneath her.

After 158 years of living on Earth, the borrower was no stranger to what it felt like to be on the ground while humans were moving about. At least then, like most borrowers, she could sense when they were coming before the tremors got too bad.

The Doctor wasn’t human. He was a 6′1″ Time Lord who was still getting accustomed to having a four and a half inch tall companion aboard his TARDIS. And he was  _fast_.

The red converse just flew by Zepheera, crashing into the floor inches away. She gave a shriek and hid under the nearest object with a small space underneath. The rumbling footsteps ground to a halt in the distance and slowly made their way back. Vibrations rattled Zepheera up through the floor as the Doctor dropped to his knees.

“Zepheera?”

She didn’t answer, feeling an embarrassed heat rising in her cheeks. Even though she’d spent her entire life growing accustomed to humans, even though the man out there was not only her friend but her  _rescuer_ , her time spent in captivity seemed to have reset everything that had made Zepheera who she was. All her life she had been the strong one, the one others her size could depend on. Now she felt weaker than ever, and she buried her face in her knees shamefully.

A sigh rushed out of the Doctor’s much larger lungs. “I’m so sorry,” he breathed. “I’m an idiot, I should’ve… I’ll be more careful from now on.”

More rumbles as he shifted even more. Shoulders tense, Zepheera glanced at the Doctor. What little she could see of him was pressed to the floor, his big brown eyes shining and contrite. She instantly relaxed with that soft gaze upon her.  _It’s just him,_  she reminded herself.  _Just the Doctor._

“Please come out,” he whispered.

With a deep steadying breath, Zepheera nodded uncurled from her tense ball, walking out of the comforting darkness and into the light.

They could work on this.


	5. Abandoned ZV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Based on [this 100 word prompt list.](https://borrowedtimeandspace.tumblr.com/post/146719798951/100-theme-challenge)
> 
> 4\. Dark  
> 14\. Trapped

“Go on.”

Zepheera frowned in confusion. The TARDIS had landed and the doors were open, but she couldn’t see anything beyond them. Only darkness. She looked up at the Doctor; being four and a half inches tall, she had to tilt her head back quite a bit just to meet his gaze from her spot on the floor. A sudden pang of insignificance shot through her gut like a cold hand.

“Where…” Her throat had gone dry and her voice came out quieter than usual, so she swallowed her fear and tried again. “Where are we?”

The Doctor nodded toward the door. “Only one way to find out.

Hesitant, Zepheera turned the other way to lock eyes with Donna. The human offered a faint smile of encouragement. Even so, something felt off to Zepheera. But her friends were waiting on her, so she carefully approached the wide-open doors.

The space outside was pitch-black, the dim light of the console room didn’t seem to touch it. Even after she’d taken a few steps into this dark place, Zepheera could hardly believe she was walking on something solid. She blinked hard and looked around with wide eyes, wandering about a foot further away from the doors. The absence of light, the absolute nothingness was beginning to hurt her eyes.

A sudden wave of dread hit her as she noticed the absence of something else. Vibrations in the floor that indicated her relatively giant friends following her.

She whirled around, squinting through the light in the TARDIS that seemed blaring to her dark-accustomed eyes.

"What’s going on?” she called, holding a hand up as a visor as her vision adjusted. Her pulse quickened when two immense blurs came into focus.

The Doctor and Donna were exactly where she left them. They stared down at Zepheera with stone faces. Her anxiety mounted. She had a feeling about what exactly those expressions meant. She had frequent nightmares about them. And as the Doctor lifted a hand, fingers pressed close together in preparation to click, Zepheera’s fears were all at once realized.

Zepheera was being left behind.

“I don’t understand!” She stumbled forward, still partially disoriented, in the hope that she could make them second-guess this decision long enough for her to make it back inside. “Did I do something wrong? Please tell me, I’ll never do whatever it is again!”

Click.

Zepheera’s blood ran cold at the sound of the Doctor snapping his fingers, freezing her in place. In reaction to the Doctor, the TARDIS doors closed on their own. The sound of the blue box taking off broke Zepheera out of her shocked state.

“No! Please!” she shouted over the growing noise and rising winds as the TARDIS began to dematerialize.

_Vwoorp_

She broke into a run, desperately throwing herself against the wooden doors. “Don’t do this! Doctor! Donna!”

_VWOORP_

“Come back!!”

Tears flowed freely down Zepheera’s cheeks as she beat her tiny fists futilely on the door. As the ship that had not only been the vehicle for the best few weeks of traveling that Zepheera had ever experienced but her  _home_  disappeared completely, she crumbled into a heap on the ground. Her entire body shook, her sobs the only sound.

She felt the darkness close in on her, all but suffocating her as she started hyperventilating. All alone. Abandoned by her only friends in the world. Trapped once again with no way out. For a moment, she convinced herself that the surface on which she lay felt just like the acrylic kennel she’d spent six months in before she met the Doctor.

Once that thought invaded her head, her screaming began in earnest.

* * *

 

Then came the sensory overload.

Suddenly there was light, nearly blinding Zepheera. Then she became aware of the warmth surrounding her. Highly confused about where she was and what was happening, she shot to her feet and immediately fell back down. She was still sobbing and hyperventilating, and her head was spinning and her lips and fingers tingled from lack of oxygen. But as she fumbled around desperately, feeling the boundaries of the warm, soft, leathery space she found herself in, the small part of Zepheera’s brain that remained functional puzzled out another reason for her loss of balance.

Hands. She was in a human’s cupped hands. And the human was moving very fast.

Then they stopped. Voices rumbled above her, their clarity lost in Zepheera’s dizziness and the blood roaring in her ears. She squeezed her eyes shut and covered her head with her arms, fearful of what these two giants were going to do to her. After a moment, the hands opened up beneath her. Zepheera gave a startled yelp as she fell a short distance, landing splayed onto another pair of hands.

These new hands were bigger and decidedly more dangerous than the first pair, but rather than trapping around her, they drew her close to the person they were attached to. And as they gently pressed her against a familiar pinstriped suit, her situation became clear.

She was waking up from a nightmare, which had induced a panic attack. Donna must have heard her distress and brought her straight to the Doctor, to whom Zepheera was more responsive in this state. The position he moved her into now was woefully familiar to Zepheera. Remembering his instructions, she concentrated on the Doctor’s slow breaths and did her best to copy them. It made her chest hurt at first, but with each repetition her nervous system calmed down another hair.

As her heart rate slowed down to a healthy level and her head cleared, the Doctor and Donna’s hushed voices came into focus as well.

“She’s getting worse,” Donna pointed out.

“I know,” murmured the Doctor. Despite how quiet he was trying to be, his voice reverberated through his chest. Zepheera couldn’t ignore it if she tried.

“I mean, first the nightmares, then the panic attacks, and now full-on night terrors? We can’t let her shrug this off anymore. What good is hopping around time and space saving planets when we can’t even help our own friend?”

“Donna, I  _know,_ ” the Doctor all but growled, sending a chill up Zepheera’s spine along with the vibrations. After another deep breath for the borrower to mimic, he went on in a whisper. “Trust me, I haven’t been ignoring her. It’s just… She’s been through a lot with so-called doctors poking and prodding her and  _worse_ , and I didn’t want to make her relive that by forcing help on her. I was waiting for her to come to  _me_.”

A moment of silence passed between the human and the Time Lord, and Zepheera let out a shaky sigh. She hadn’t meant to cause her larger friends so much trouble. Nothing she did stopped the nightmares, or quashed this completely irrational fear of abandonment deep inside her. She wanted to deal with it herself so the Doctor and Donna wouldn’t have to worry about it. Clearly, that was beyond her power.

“I’ll talk to her when she wakes up,” said the Doctor, interrupting Zepheera’s thoughts. “I’ll help her, Donna, that’s a promise. For now, get some sleep. You need it more than I do.”

After a second of hesitation, Donna replied, “You better make good on that, Spaceman.” Her voice teemed with concern, and with that her footsteps retreated further into the TARDIS.

Now that the conversation overhead was done, Zepheera allowed herself to relax a little more. She had some deeply-rooted apprehensions about what kind of help she was going to receive, but stronger than them was the trust she had in the Doctor. If anybody could make her better, it was him. No matter how long it took.

The Doctor leaned back, probably in the seat in the console room if the dim lighting was anything to go by. With his chest slightly more horizontal, Zepheera adjusted herself more comfortably. The Doctor lifted his hand about a centimeter to give her more room, but didn’t otherwise react to her shifting. She finally settled down laying on her side, nestled in the space between his tie and the lapel of his suit.

The hand came back down to rest gently over her lower half like a blanket, while his thumb absently stroked her arm and part of her back. It was a small but comforting gesture that brought a faint smile to Zepheera’s lips. The sound of his breathing paired with the muffled thuds of his hearts in their strange one-two-three-four rhythm easily lulled Zepheera to sleep.

If she dreamt at all, she didn’t recall it in the morning.


	6. Midnight - ZV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Taking a big space truck full of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight? What could possibly go wrong?_
> 
> Everything.

“Doctor!” Zepheera cried, climbing along the bottom of an uprooted seat to look him in the eye. But he couldn’t look back. He sat on the floor trembling, unseeing eyes more full of fear than Zepheera had ever seen in them before. 

If there was one thing you learn when you sit on a man’s shoulder, it’s how much that man moves. The Doctor was always moving– _always–_ and now he was terrifyingly still. If he could have budged, like his eyes told her he desperately wanted to, he would have. She clutched at her hair in frustration. She wanted to help,  _needed_  to, but what could she do? She couldn’t move him on her own or save him from physical harm, she was four and a half inches tall! 

For once, she wished Donna were around. The loud, boisterous human would make quick work of slapping sense into the other six, who were still arguing about what they were going to do to the Doctor. All they had done the entire time was bicker and yell, giving the borrower the worst headache. And the seventh, that Sky woman…As though she could read her mind, she stared coldly down at Zepheera with the faintest of smirks.

Now the yelling was so loud it blocked out Zepheera’s thoughts. At the very least, a couple of the humans were sticking up for the Doctor, but they were quickly shut down. One more look into the Doctor’s eyes–utterly petrified, begging for help the only way he could–and Zepheera’d had enough of these humans.

“Would you all just SHUT UP!!” she shrieked.

All eyes turned to Zepheera. She had been relatively quiet the entire trip, taking all the Doctor’s warnings to heart. Unless she had something that needed saying she simply observed, and when she did speak it was either to or in defense of the Doctor. Now, with her cheeks streaked with angry tears, it was finally her turn to shout.

“No one is throwing  _anybody_  off this truck, especially not him! Can’t you see he’s the victim in all this? I guess not, since the last thing you want to do is help him when he needs it the most! The charity of the human race!”

“The little one…” Sky mused, cutting off Zepheera’s tirade. “ _The little one…_ ” the Doctor repeated beyond his own control.

“She’s like his pet.” “ _She’s like his pet._ ” “So loyal…and foolish.” “ _So loyal…and foolish._ ” “Poor dear, thinks the Doctor is a good man…” “ _Poor dear, thinks the Doctor is a good man…_ ” “And can’t understand what’s happened to him.” “ _And can’t understand what’s happened to him._ ”

“That’s it, he’s brainwashed the little thing!” Biff Cane asserted.

“She’s not a thing!” cried Dee Dee, the student, in Zepheera’s defense.

“That’s enough, Dee Dee,” the professor barked at his assistant. “It’s only a logical assumption. With a brain mass such as hers, she’s bound to be, shall we say, impressionable,” he surmised, addressing the whole company.

“I reckon she’s working with him,” Cane intoned, pointing at Zepheera accusingly. “He’s probably trained her up to believe him, do whatever he says! They’ve been in cahoots the whole time!”

“Don’t be stupid, I am not brainwashed! I am four times your age and perfectly capable of thinking on my own! Unlike some!” 

“You listen here, you little–!”

“Dad, leave her alone!” Jethro Cane interjected, the dark broody teenager staring down his father.

“That’s how he does it.” “ _That’s how he does it._ ” “He makes you fight…” “ _He makes you fight…_ ” “Creeps into your head…” “ _Creeps into your head…_ ” “And whispers…” “ _And whispers…_ ” “Listen…” “ _Listen…_ ” “Just listen…” “ _Just listen…_ ”

Zepheera was listening, and each word Sky made the Doctor say broke her heart a little more.

“That’s him.” “ _That’s him._ ”

With each repetition, the Time Lord’s jaw clenched a little harder, the tremors that seized his body worsened and his eyes brimmed with tears. The Doctor was fighting it, but he was losing.

“Inside.” “ _Inside._ ”

The hopelessness of the situation hit Zepheera like a train and she fell to her knees, tears welling up in her eyes.  _Why do I have to be so damn USELESS??_  

“I’m sorry,” she sobbed, praying the Doctor could still hear her. “I tried, they won’t listen, I’m sorry…”

For a moment, everything but the Doctor faded. Even the humans’ voices were dulled in Zepheera’s perception. But reality came crashing back in when flesh suddenly surrounded her, lifted her away, and she realized people were now calling with confidence and finality to throw the Doctor out.

“No, you can’t!” Zepheera struggled against the fingers of the human who held her.

The human–Jethro’s mother, Val–held the borrower firmly in a fist and shushed her like one would a small animal, stroking the back of Zepheera’s head and neck with the pad of her thumb. “Don’t worry, sweet thing, it’ll all be over soon.” This was the only thing she said softly; seconds later, she was barking at her husband to “get him out! I want him out! Throw him out!!”

Zepheera craned her neck to see what they were doing to the Doctor. The father had his arms crooked under the Doctor’s shoulders, and the only resistance he met with was the Doctor’s foot hooked around the bottom of a seat. A tiny bubble of hope rose in the borrower’s chest at the thought of the Time Lord fighting back. But one of the other humans, the professor, started to help the father, wrenching the foot from its hold. Zepheera struggled again, but the mother’s grip on her tightened.

Young Deedee was terribly overwhelmed, eyes darting from the mother to Zepheera and then the Doctor and back, covering her ears from all the shouting going on; with her arms pinned to her sides, Zepheera envied her that luxury. Jethro seemed emotionally conflicted at first, but eventually pitched in to carry the Doctor out after his parents had chastised him harshly. The hostess, who initially protested, was torn. And all the while, Sky cheered them on and the Doctor copied every word.

“Molto bene!” she cried triumphantly, catching both the hostess and Zepheera’s attention. The Doctor parroted his own catchphrase.

“You see!” Zepheera called in hopes she’d be heard in all the noise. “It’s not him, it’s her! That’s  _his voice_  she’s using!” This earned Zepheera a brief glance from the hostess, who turned her diligent attention to Sky.

“Allons-y!” “ _Allons-y!”_

Now there was no mistaking it. The hostess understood the truth, and that was all Zepheera needed. 

“SHE’S TAKEN HIS VOICE!”

With determination, the woman tackled Sky against the emergency exit, smashing down the glass-shielded button without hesitation. Six seconds of screaming and brilliant X-tonic light later, Sky and the hostess were sucked out of the vehicle, disappearing into Midnight forever.

Shock hit every single passenger at once as the shielded doors slammed shut. Val Cane sat down heavily in a nearby chair, her grip on Zepheera suddenly loosened. The borrower fell three feet and hit the floor hard. Ordinarily, this wouldn’t do her much damage, but she was already bruised and sensitive from the human’s tight grip. Her entire right side felt on fire. Anytime she tried to move, her whole body would ache in protest.

Less than a second after she landed, a greater impact shook the floor just ahead of her. Ignoring how much it hurt, she lifted her head to look. The Doctor had been released and fell forward, barely catching himself. His eyes and mouth were still wide from the scream he’d been mimicking, and he gasped at the sudden return of control over his own actions.

“It’s gone,” he breathed. “It’s gone, it’s gone…” He repeated the words over and over as he rolled onto his back, panting all the while.

Zepheera pushed herself to her feet with her good arm and limped closer to the Doctor in spite of her pain. At best, she was badly bruised, but none of that mattered. Her injuries would amount to nothing in a minute thanks to her healing factor. Right now the Doctor needed a friend, and none of these humans could come even close to fitting the bill.

She leaned her good side against his upper cheek, the only part of his face she could reach the way his back was arched and his body tensed. The muscles beneath her flinched faintly at her touch and the Doctor gave a surprised hiss. 

“It’s okay. It’s just me,” she whispered into his nearby ear, laying a tender hand near his sideburn. “I’m here, you’re gonna be alright.”

“It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone…”

“You’re damn right, it’s gone,” she agreed, jaw clenched in emotion and slowly fading pain. “It can’t get you anymore. I won’t let it. As long as I have anything to say about it, no one will touch you. That’s a promise, Doctor.”

Haltingly, the Doctor turned his head toward Zepheera, who pulled back so his wide eye could find her. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed herself against his cheekbone just below his eye, good arm extended in the best hug she could give. With a shaky sigh, the eye closed and he leaned into her tiny embrace, curling his trembling hand behind her in return. His eyelashes mingled with her short hair, and if she noticed she didn’t react. Slowly but surely, his body relaxed and he began to control his heavy breathing, wary of Zepheera as always.

Eventually the Doctor sat up and leaned on the side of a seat with the borrower nestled against his neck. They were across the aisle from Val Cane who, like everybody else in the van, was staring at them. While the Doctor continued to catch his breath and regain his composure, Zepheera looked Val up and down. This was the woman who had grabbed Zepheera without her consent, treated her like a child at best and a pet at worst, and had seemed intent on keeping her after the company had disposed of the Doctor. Even so, the look on the woman’s face gave Zepheera pause. She seemed repentant, and for one naive second Zepheera thought she’d gotten through to these humans. They all knew now that they had been wrong about the Doctor, and now perhaps Zepheera had proved that they were wrong about her. The Time Lord took care of her, yes, but she took care of him, too.

And in five words, Val Cane tore down every mite of hope in Zepheera.

“I said it was her,” she insisted, in reference to Sky.

Zepheera shot to her feet angrily because she most certainly had  _not_ –in fact, she had been the most vocal about getting rid of the Doctor! But before she could tell the enormous woman off the Doctor angled his head so his chin partially blocked her view of the human. Zepheera almost turned her wrath to him, but after seeing his clenched jaw and the way Val seemed to wither under his gaze, she realized the Doctor had made her point for her, only more poignantly without words.

Deciding to follow suit, Zepheera strode purposefully across the Doctor’s clavicle, pulled up his loosened collar and ducked underneath, pulling it down pointedly over herself. She curled up in the comforting dimness, allowing herself to pretend that the humans weren’t out there. Their silence made it easy. She could forget about them until they were all rescued from this broken-down wreck.

* * *

Four hours there and four hours back. Like a school trip, Donna had called it. Such a duration was the main reason Donna had chosen to sunbathe in the Midnight Leisure Palace rather than accompany the Doctor and Zepheera on their little field trip to the Sapphire Waterfall.

Only two months since the borrower had joined their travels in the TARDIS, after the Doctor rescued her from a terrible circumstance, and Zepheera was already willing to spend the next eight hours locked in a box with several unknown humans. All for what would probably amount to fifteen minutes of a pretty view. Donna had to admit it was a rather brave decision for someone less than five inches tall.

Then again, she supposed Zepheera could have agreed to go because the Doctor would be there, and  _he_  was going because Zepheera was gonna keep him company. Go figure.

Four hours later, the pool was still empty, apart from Donna in her robe and long chair. A few people had come and gone, but she paid them no mind. In fact, she didn’t think much of it when another set of footsteps echoed from the entrance hallway. Then she remembered that all the others who visited the pool had either been rowdy family groups or extra-friendly individuals chatting up the quiet staff. The silence of this person’s approach piqued Donna’s interest enough to open her eyes and turn to look.

She gasped and sat bolt upright at the sight of the Doctor rounding the corner, his long overcoat draped over one arm. It was much too early for their return. Something was wrong, she just knew it; everything about him threw up red flags in Donna’s mind, from his stony expression to his somber gait. Full of concern, she got up and approached him slowly.

When she got close enough, her breath caught at Zepheera’s notable absence from his shoulder. The Doctor shook his head when he saw the worry in Donna’s eyes, and he nodded toward his left shoulder. Now that she was closer, Donna could detect the slightest raise in the Doctor’s loosened collar on that side. Miniscule fingers curled around the edge of the fabric as the borrower underneath, partially illuminated by the potent x-tonic light, peeked warily out at Donna.

Donna’s heart sank. Zepheera hadn’t acted like this around her since before they’d gotten to know each other as close friends, and she’d never known the Doctor to be so quiet.

Something happened.

Finding out  _what_  would have to wait. For now, Donna’s friends were hurting and needed her comfort. Without a word, she pulled the Doctor into a tight hug, careful to avoid his left shoulder.

It took a moment, but the Doctor eventually hugged her back. A minute later, Donna felt the tiniest of weights dropping onto her own shoulder. A wave of relief swept over her as Zepheera nestled into the soft fabric of the robe near her neck. Whatever happened out there, it hadn’t affected any of the progress between the odd pair of women.

“Alright,” she mumbled into the Doctor’s shoulder, warning them both that she was about to pull away. Meeting his dark gaze only filled Donna with determination. “Tell me everything.”


	7. Helping Hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rare fluff for this AU for Hug a Tiny Day 2016!

Zepheera woke up feeling annoyed. She stirred under her light covers and gave a sleepy murmur as she blinked blearily, frowning at the ceiling in confusion. If the sluggish state of her mind was anything to go by, she hadn’t gotten her full eight hours. What could have possibly–?

_Knock knock knock knock!_  “Zepheera!”

The borrower in question heaved a sigh. “You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she groaned.

The Doctor continued to knock and call her name, so Zepheera gave in and kicked off the blanket with a grumble. Rolling out of bed, she stumbled toward the exit to her hidden home.

The Time Lord had happened upon four-and-a-half-inch-tall Zepheera in the possession of scientists, trapped in a tank and pumped full of drugs. He rescued her, revived her, gave her a place on his ship and offered her the chance of a lifetime: to see the universe. After over a century and a half of more of the same, and sometimes worse, nothing could have made Zepheera happier.

In the year that followed, she grew close to the Doctor and his human companion, Donna. They traveled together, ran together, and fought to rescue alien civilizations together. Despite their size difference, the three of them actually made a brilliant team. For instance, the Doctor carried knowledge from across the universe, Donna’s cleverness cropped up in unexpected places, and Zepheera could always find her way into places they couldn’t reach. In their downtime, the larger of the travelers were perfectly comfortable with Zepheera carrying on the lifestyle of her people. She borrowed from them, scavenging materials from the virtually infinite number of rooms in the TARDIS, and over time she’d put together a humble home hidden behind the wall panels.

She liked to believe that she’d come across the loose panel that was now the entrance to her house entirely on her own, but sometimes she suspected that the Doctor had loosened it for her to find when she wasn’t looking. Either way, he and Donna were both aware of her base’s location in case they needed to find her in an emergency.

Rude awakenings like the one Zepheera was recovering from made her regret that decision.

“Alright, alright, I’m  _coming!_ ” she called. That silenced the Doctor’s knocks at least. Careful to avoid the few borrowings she left lying around, she squeezed through the gap that led to the corridor and squinted up at her giant friend.

“I. Was. Asleep,” she pronounced, shading her eyes as she tilted her head back to meet his gaze. Luckily, he was kneeling, so she didn’t have to look far. Zepheera’s annoyance softened when she noticed the Doctor wringing his hands and looking quite distressed. “What’s wrong?”

The Doctor blinked. “Ah. Yes, well, y'see, the thing is…  _Well_ , what happened was, I was, er, I guess you could say  _tuning up_  things in the console room; it’s a bit more complicated than that – okay,  _much_ more complicated than that – but anyway, I digress–”

“If you could get to the point, please,” Zepheera pressed, quickly losing patience.

“Right, of course,” the Doctor nodded with a steadying breath. “Long story short, I kinda, sort of…dropped my sonic.”

Zepheera shot him a flat look. “And you woke me up because…?”

“Well, I need your help to get it back.”

She scowled. “Why me? Can’t you bother Donna to–”

“I was working in the space  _underneath_  the console,” clarified the Doctor. “It slipped out of my grasp and fell into a nook I can’t reach into. I’m, heh, a bit too big.” He chuckled sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.

As irritated as she was, Zepheera could never stay mad at the Doctor for long. With an exaggerated eye roll, she sighed in defeat. “Fine. Just give me a minute.”

Without waiting for the Doctor’s response, she went back inside to change from her sleep clothes into an outfit more suitable for borrowing. She slipped on her boots and almost grabbed her bag before remembering she wouldn’t be needing it. Instead, she tossed her grappling hook and coiled rope over her shoulder, giving her dark, sleep-tousled bob a quick comb-through with her fingers before returning to the corridor. The Doctor’s upturned hand was waiting for her, along with his grateful smile.

* * *

If anyone had told Zepheera decades ago that one day she’d be able to sit comfortably in a human hand, she’d have told them to bugger off. And yet there she was, leaning tiredly against a human look-alike’s fingers as he sauntered off toward the console room. Completely at his mercy, yet with complete trust in him.

She straightened when he entered the dome-shaped room, peering over the edge of the Doctor’s hand curiously. Indeed, one of the floor panels was pulled up and set aside, leaving a gaping hole in the floor. Those compartments were still a bit of a mystery to Zepheera, even after all this time. She’d observed that a few of them were used for storage, filled with old trunks and boxes and the like, but most seemed to be dark mazes of machinery that Zepheera would rather not get lost in.

And now she was about to crawl willingly into one.  _Spectacular_.

The Doctor climbed slowly into the hole, careful to jostle the borrower as little as possible. Crouching, he took up less than half of the space inside, but once Zepheera found herself lowered below the floor level, she saw that there was more room than the size of the panel would suggest.

“Where did it fall through?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“Down here.” The Doctor leaned down and reached in to lay his hand next to a slight slope. Just big enough for the sonic screwdriver, and too small to fit his hand through. Zepheera slid off the Doctor’s palm at the top of the slope to carefully examine her surroundings. Nothing in this place was smooth or flat, not even the slope. It all seemed to be made of wire or hose or angular mechanisms and couplings that Zepheera could never begin to understand. She didn’t need to, though. All she needed was a secure place to attach her hook.

The ground shook the moment she reached for the grapple hanging from her shoulder; in her fatigued state, she hadn’t thought to expect movement from the Doctor, so she stumbled a bit before she felt steady enough to shoot a glare over her shoulder. Her silent scolding had no effect, the Doctor was shifting to lay on his back and wasn’t even looking her way.

“As you can see, I was working like this, on that stuff up there,” he explained, pointing out a few wires and plugs dangling from the underside of the console. “It’s all kinda technical, and actually quite volatile without the right tools–”

“Then I guess I’d better not delay,” Zepheera snipped, securing her hook around a black cord near the top of the slope and disappeared through the gap. “Really don’t need the graphic details.”

The Doctor cocked an eyebrow at the gap. “Well, someone’s grumpy,”

“ _Someone_  is owed a cup of tea after this.”

She slid slowly down her rope at first; even knowing how quickly it would heal, she’d rather not sprain anything by jumping in too fast and hitting the floor too hard. She couldn’t even see the bottom through the shadows, much less the Doctor’s precious probe.

“A torch would be much appreciated if you’ve got one!” she called up.

“Ah! Right, yes.” Zepheera halted her descent when she felt a few vibrations through her rope indicating the Doctor was moving. Then a pale yellow light washed over her and illuminated her destination perfectly. “Better?”

“Much, thanks.” Now that a floor was in plain sight, a little less than a foot away, Zepheera dropped easily down. She frowned when she didn’t see the sonic anywhere. The immediate area was cavernous and irregular, and a glance upward told her she was about a foot and a half down  from the Doctor’s level. A massive tangle of wired machinery stood behind her, a few outlines of passageways before her.

While she took a moment to choose a direction, the Doctor’s voice echoed down to her. “See it yet?”

Zepheera rolled her eyes. “Not yet. Give me a minute.” She almost asked him to angle the torch to a better angle, but given how narrow the opening was, she doubted that would be easy. Instead, she started toward the passage right in front of her. It seemed to be wide enough to accommodate a falling screwdriver and was the only logical place for it to go. She proceeded cautiously, trailing her rope along in her hand so she wouldn’t get lost or fall down a hole with no way back. “How’d you even manage to drop it down here?”

“I dunno, it’s never really happened before. Guess I just…got lost in thought or something, and it slipped.”  
  
“You? Lost in thought? Shock and surprise,” Zepheera murmured, a twinge of humor teasing at her lips.

“Oi! Heard that.”

This actually brought a chuckle out of Zepheera, who turned to call over her shoulder. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you’re starting to sound like DonNA-A-A!”

Her foot caught on something she couldn’t see even if she were watching where she was going, and she tumbled down a low slope of hard metal things until something cylindrical broke her fall. It buzzed briefly as she landed on it.

“Zepheera! What happened, are you alright?”

Slightly dazed from the impact, Zepheera shook her head and breathed deeply. “I’m okay!” she assured. As she got to her feet, she realized exactly what she was leaning on for support. “I found it!”

“Brilliant!” the Doctor exulted. “Can you get it up?”

Zepheera regarded the probe at her feet. It was taller than she was, but she was stronger than she looked. “Hang on! I’ll see what I can do.”

* * *

The Doctor couldn’t keep still as he waited for Zepheera. She was so close to retrieving his sonic screwdriver from the underbelly of his TARDIS, something he would never have been able to do without either an unthinkable amount of effort or a four-and-a-half inch tall companion.

“How’s it coming?” he called down the gap, excited and impatient in equal measure. He hadn’t heard her voice in a little over two minutes, and he was eager to know the current state of his beloved screwdriver. He wished he could see into the hole he’d dropped the device into in the first place.

A small grunt echoed down from the shadows, a little closer than the last time Zepheera had filled him in. “Had to dislodge it from between two…I don’t even know. Things. Then I had to push it up a slope – this thing is harder to roll than it looks!”

“Do you think you can manage it?” asked the Doctor, a little worry leaking through his voice. He hadn’t thought about how the borrower would be able to  _retrieve_  his sonic, a device almost longer than she was tall.

After a pause, she replied, “Don’t worry, I’ve got an idea. Give me a moment, and keep an ear out.”

The Doctor sat back and placed his chin on his folded arms, drumming his fingers restlessly. He hummed quietly to stop himself from actually counting the seconds until he heard Zepheera’s voice again. “Okay, I’ve got it attached to my rope! I’m gonna need you to ease us up!”

“Right! Gotcha!” The Doctor shot up, nearly bumping his head on the underside of the floor. He pinched the tiny rope, the size of a thread to him, in two fingers and tugged. Hearing Zepheera’s surprised cry, he halted.

“I said  _ease_ , not wrench!” she chastised.

“Sorry,” mumbled the Doctor, this time drawing the rope back slowly. He was extra careful when Zepheera and the screwdriver were almost out; she needed to align the probe so it would come out cleanly without crashing into the sides of the long, narrow gap. Once that was achieved, it emerged easily and the Doctor slipped his free hand underneath it.

After his companion dismounted the device, he scooped it up into his right hand, ignoring the rope still attached to it. He adjusted his grip and gave it a buzz. It was music to his ears.

“At last! My arm is complete again!” he exulted.

Zepheera’s fatigued mind had only begun to wonder if that was a reference to something when she found herself being lifted quickly to the Doctor’s face. To her chagrin, he planted an overjoyed kiss to the top of her head.

“You’re the best!” he proclaimed, beaming gratefully even as Zepheera ran her fingers through her dark bob to brush off the feeling his lips left behind.

“Don’t  _ever_  do that again,” she emphasized, scowling halfheartedly up at his stupid face. Little did she know the Doctor had only begun to display his gratitude toward his companion, and he drew her close once again.

At first, she worried that he was disregarding her wishes, so she threw her arms up to fend off another peck. Instead, he pressed her to his cheek and thanked her over and over. Once the shock had worn off, she realized that what she’d done meant a lot more to the Doctor than she realized. She smiled and patted his cheek fondly.

“You’re welcome, big fella,” she murmured.

They stayed like this for a good while, until Zepheera broke the contented silence between them: “Now, I believe you owe me a cuppa.”

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't judge me for the Sweeny Todd reference, I am a theatre nerd first and a writer second.


	8. Rough Ride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may have gone a tad political...

Zepheera clung to an inexplicable hose dangling from the ceiling to the console, the four-and-a-half inch tall woman slowly climbing up the notches one by one to be closer to eye level with her Time Lord and human companions.

“Do you have any idea where you’re going?” Donna demanded of the Doctor as he piloted the TARDIS. Usually she and Zepheera just accepted the turbulent nature of the time machine in flight, but today’s trip seemed particularly rough.

“Of course!” the Doctor scoffed in time with another hard shake of the TARDIS. Zepheera’s grip tightened on the rubbery handholds. Both giants braced themselves against the console, and the borrower suddenly regretted her decision to stray from her usual spot on the Doctor’s shoulder.

That regret didn’t last.

“I’ve just gotta adjust the–  _criminy!”_  The Doctor was thrown across the console, Donna against the seat behind her. Zepheera let out a startled cry, wrapping her arms and legs around the hose as it swayed widely. The monitor blipped desperately, and the Doctor swore under his breath, shoving himself to his feet and throwing several levels. The entire company breathed a sigh of relief when the TARDIS seemed to even out.

“What the  _hell_  was that?” Zepheera snapped, craning her neck to glare at the Doctor.

The Time Lord locked eyes with Zepheera’s tiny violets, and he held a hand underneath her so she could peel herself from the hose and land in a heap in his palm.

“Got a little too close to twenty-sixteen,” he said by way of explanation.

“What’s up with twenty-sixteen?” asked Donna, gathering herself.

The Doctor shot a dire look toward his human companion and the woman in his hand. “…Spoilers,” he muttered, lifting Zepheera to his shoulder.

She and Donna had learned not to question him when he said that word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 2016 was a rough one.
> 
> Little did I know, sweet summer child that I was...


End file.
